"That's why I called you."
"You didn't call me. I showed up anyway."
Rowan gave a short nod, one he only used when he accepted the gravity of a situation. "All right. I'll add her to the internal inquiry list. If she messed with security systems, that's federal. If she harmed a minor, that's state."
"And if she tried to hide both," Ethan added, "that's everything."
Rowan's jaw tightened. "Show me the security office."
Ethan nodded once and led the way, keeping a steady pace. The marshals followed at a distance, checking perimeters, sweeping corners.
When they reached the clubhouse, Rowan studied the locked door, then glanced at Ethan. "She won't expect this."
"She didn't expect me," Ethan said.
Rowan unlocked the door with a federal override key. Inside, the dark room hummed with machines. The blank screens flickered as systems attempted a reboot. A red warning flashed on the monitor: Partial data restore in progress.
Rowan's lips tightened. "She messed up her own cover-up."
"Fear makes people sloppy," Ethan replied.
Rowan turned to him. "This is enough. We'll get the rest."
For the first time since the incident, Ethan allowed a slow breath of relief to settle in his lungs: not victory, not satisfaction, just the steady knowledge that the truth now had momentum. Tomorrow, the shift would begin.
Rowan stepped deeper into the security room, the dim glow from the monitors casting sharp angles across his face. He scanned the rows of equipment with a practiced sweep, already assessing what he could pull, what he could salvage, and what Vivian had tried and failed to erase. Ethan stood just behind him, arms folded, gaze steady, watching the machine cycle through a slow, glitching reboot.
A restored fragment blinked onto the main monitor: a corrupted thumbnail streaked with static, but unmistakably showing the hallway leading to the standards room. Rowan zoomed in, studying the timestamp.